Month: November 2015

Vehicles need periodic maintenance in order to make them function very well and to ensure easy drivability and safe driving experience. To achieve these benefits, driver’s daily maintenance check is inevitable. It is the first step to prevent your car from killing you.

Poor maintenance of vehicle such as under inflated tires, engine defect, brake defect and so on will consume more fuel than the vehicle in good conditions; more so, daily maintenance inspections by the drivers help to reduce maintenance cost and to avoid unnecessary failure at the road side, daily vehicle inspections also increase the vehicle safety and reduce the high risk of accidents on our roads. These among others are the reasons why driver’s daily check on the vehicle must be done.

However, the driver’s maintenance check can be done in the following ways:

Drivers are supposed to inspecting their vehicles before and after daily operations. And any defect discovered during the inspections that can cause more damage to the vehicle or render it unsafe on the road must be corrected with immediate alacrity.

In order to ensure the safety of road users the following check must be done often or on weekly basis: tire condition and air pressure, any kind of leaks, engine oil level, all belts, all hoses, radiator coolant level, battery fluid level, hydraulic oil level, transmission on level lights / signal, fuel, and windshield water fluid level.

Also on daily basis when the vehicle engine is switch on drivers must also check the following: all gauge brakes before moving, windshield wipers and the horn must be check.

The drivers must also ensure that the interior and the exterior of the vehicle are clean and drivers must also ensure that the vehicle is washed when necessary in order to maintain a good appearance.

It is important to note that, it’s the responsibility of the driver to consult the vehicle owner or the fleet manager (in case if the driver works in a company) on repairs and preventive maintenance of the vehicle, and it is the responsibility of the fleet manager to ensure that all the necessary preventative maintenance are performed on schedule and the vehicles are also serviced in a timely manner when notified. However, all drivers must know how to handle unscheduled emergency repairs.

Nevertheless, if your vehicle is properly maintained, you will have no reason to question the reliability of your car and more importantly you will have peace of mind that you are driving a safe and efficient vehicle. A good maintenance of your car is the best way to prevent your car from killing you.

Driving becomes difficult and even the roads become unsafe for road users especially the pedestrian when the operator or driver of a motor vehicle is mentally and physically impaired. However, the following factors among others can affect you when driving:

Use of non-prescription medication

Emotional state of the driver

Medical condition or sickness of the driver

Use of alcohol before driving

Use of prescription medicine may also affect you.

Eating or drinking while driving.

Use of illegal drugs

Fatigue

Reading or writing while driving

Use of tobacco or smoking while driving

Since, everyone expects safe and courteous drivers to use the road, and then it will be better if drivers can avoid all these factors that can lead to unsafe driving.

Fleet management is a complete management of a company fleet of vehicles. It is meant to cover all aspects of a vehicle life span, i.e. from procurement to the point of disposal.

Fleet management is important to any entrepreneur or a group of people that relies majorly on transportation in their normal business activities. This is because it will enable them to eradicate or minimize the risk that is associated with their transport businesses. Fleet management will enable the company to improve the efficiency and productivity while reducing the total transportation and staff cost. It also ensures high rate of compliance with the law. However, other benefits of fleet management to an organization include the following:

It increases the profit of the company.

It enhances the brand image of the firm.

It also, ensures operations reliability by strengthening the drivers’ skills and reducing the vehicle downtime, thereby, providing standard and quality services for its customers.

It also, keeps and provides proper documentation of the vehicle fleet.

It can also monitoring fleet operations for the firm, this is the utmost basic function in all fleet management system. This has to do with the vehicle tracking component which is usually GPS based.

However, to achieve maximum fleet operations, it is important for the manager to have a comprehensive and cohesive set of associated parameters that designate whether to retain or eliminate each vehicle or whether it falls into a questionable category that requires further research or maintenance.

He must also ensures that most efficient vehicles are assigned to operations, however, in case, there are other transport operations that must be carried out after the most efficient vehicles have been fully allocated for operations, then the fleet manager is expected to shift to most efficient alternative.

The fleet manager also needs to prepare maintenance schedules for all types of vehicles used for transport operations and he must ensure that the maintenance schedules are strictly adhere to.

He must also ensure or allow adequate and consistent safety inspections, to be carried out on various types of vehicles used for transport operations on weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual bases. He may also, appoint fleet inspection officer who will perform the inspections and explain to him what to do in case of exception to these safety inspections. The manager is also expected to design safety documentations required on the fleet.

In conclusion, fleet management is highly important, most especially to those that rely on transportation in their businesses and those that provide transport services and more importantly, it is one of the major factors to enhance road safety.

Maritime transport is very important to any nation in the world; it plays an important role in international and domestic trade. Hence, absence of this transport mode in a country will surely bring negative effects on its economy. Moreover, water transportation also plays an important role to compliment other modes of transport such as rail, road and air transport. Its capacity to carry heavy cargoes at less expensive cost makes other modes of transport and their infrastructures not to be overstretched. However, 6 major importance of maritime transportation are here below:

It promotes trade and commerce: sea transportation supports the domestic economy through importation of raw materials and equipments or machines used by manufacturers. This is an important role it plays in the economy of any nation.

It creates revenue and availability of finance: sea port transport generates a lot of money to the nation; it is a viable source of income that cannot be overlooked or undermined. For instance, in Nigeria, the Nigeria Sea Port source of revenue among others include, fees from registration of ship and mortgages, custom duties, port charges and tariffs realized by the Nigeria corporate taxes from shipping companies, fees for licensing and forward agents, registration of shipping and companies and so on.

It develops economic related activities: sea port transport aids the growth of some industries which are purposely established because of maritime transport, such industries are associated to maritime industry, e.g. Shipbuilding Company, logistics, etc.

Banks may also be interested in financing shipping companies or acquisition of vessels. All of these are economic related activities to maritime industry.

It creates employment opportunities: maritime transport plays important roles in economy of a nation because it creates employment opportunities for jobless people, thereby reducing social problems that can be caused by unemployment. Hence, the saying an idle hand is a devil workshop.

It enhances industrial growth and development: it is important to note that some entrepreneurs prefer to locate their firms near seaport in order reduce the high cost of transportation and to enhance ease accessibility to raw materials.